january first

it's january first as i write this post, couched up on the velvet at the Emison's in Medina -a patchy suburb, miles away from minneapolis. it's relatively warmer outside this evening -it's been terrible the past few days. i think i can smell the snow tonight -through the insulated window panes and burnished wood. there's a quaint glow brushing the waxy olive paint of the wall, a bizarre pattern of light scratching the uneven edges of the textured ceiling. seventy yards away from my couch, a string of christmas bulbs glisten in the darkness -golden, crimson, moss and turquoise. i've never really observed them before. they are beautiful.

it's funny how things change with the transition of a new year. needless to say, a digit adds to the lousy four numbers of the calendar, but it feels rather peculiarly odd. i don't know what happened yesterday, but i didn't send emails or cards to people who have mattered to me all my life. i even got down to clicking on the tab to send a greeting, but pressed the cross button instead. i've deleted a couple of contacts who i thought were important to my sanity. i've skipped over contact names on my cell phone -people who i used to keep constant tabs on once upon a time. these names are slipping away today, through my loosened grip of emotionality, and i sit and wonder why this is happening.

there's this passing muse today because i have tried to forget you all this while. i will confess, i have not succeeded. not even a tiny little bit like i wanted to. and then at the cabin, in the solitude and quiet, i've thought about you more and more -rapid fancies and outrageous desires compounding my thoughts. you remember those messages you used to send in the evenings, giving me plastic hopes and fake impressions of how much you really cared? what happened to those blank stares and uncoordinated smiles you would plaster on your face while crocheting by the fire place? really, was i that unimportant that you decided to play this little game? this little game of test and manipulation to question my patience? this little game of who wins in ignorance and sentimental mutilation? have you ever considered your selfishness? your jealousies? your intolerance? i agree you have a basis underlying your estimates -whatever the issue may have been, but have you ever asked me what i have thought? have you ever looked at the situation through my kaleidoscope?

fine. ignore me as much as you want to. i will reciprocate your ignorance: doesn't mean, i will forget you. you know, i've tried to do that over christmas and the new years. i thought i'd resolved to blanch your face into nonexistence, crumble your smiles into an outrageous puzzle of powder and mist, freeze your memories onto a palette of greasy pastel, but i think i have failed. in your last telephone conversation, remember how you curled your lips and pinched at my love, before we played blackgammon by the stairway? remember how you called me the fallible insomniac with your concrete rationale of perversion?

thank you for the love. that's what i wanted to say.

that day in december...

You know you want to cry out to her and tell her you’re sorry, but your voice dries out with the fading lights. You see the sickly figure on the platform, wrapped in a coat and inked with a smile. The tears rolling down her cheeks, like plastic ink drops, staining a path that you and I will never know. Did you ever try to understand those people on the roads, pin-pricked and homeless, weeping desperately for warmth? Pull your sympathies back today and your plastic concerns –she doesn’t want them with her. Not because she’s lost respect or doesn’t appreciate your worth, but because she’s scared. Because she saw her youth in you, and the endless trails of blood and shame that she hurdled over in the past. You see a violent quiver on her lips, a battered crease on her face and an insensate stagnation jutting through her eyes. You know she’s ripping untruths from her cold reality, her careless memories of abusive matrimony slipping out through indiscretion. But you pose ignorance. You slip back to your shady judgmental self –will you remember her over Christmas? Or even when you wake up tomorrow and wear your make-up? Today you think of harboring displeasure against her husband, or Larry’s partner. What about tomorrow?

Scroll up to the page when all of this started, on a lazy August afternoon when you were thinking about your parents, in a classroom by the library. You were shaken by the thought of varsity activism –leadership roles and positions of authority that you’ve never undertaken since elementary school. The thought that stirs you the most is not your work efficiency –you have enough self belief in that regard –but your peer acceptance. If there’s one thing that you should remember in life it would be that familiarity is not solidarity. Of course you will love your peers, support them and work with them, but never tell them your weaknesses. You’ll regret it someday.

Remember October? Those little chatters on the pavements and in the gymnasium, when you’d be gaping into the mirror –wringing your towel and observing your nose. You had plans of fashion shows and community board games, where you’d expect a hundred to show up and raise some money. They fell through. Not because it was an impractical suggestion, but because of the lack of interest. Meetings on Sundays would evidently mean missing Desperate Housewives and Sex & The City. What importance does AIDS hold compared to all the glitz and glamour? Didn’t football seem more interesting than discussing factsheets? Or the odor of sweet alcohol, for that matter? Wasn’t illness a more plausible excuse for absence, when really, fraternity houses were the real attraction? But you learnt to be flexible. To realize that there are endless sieves in this promising world –be brave enough to face them.

Then the plan of action changed. You wanted donations –a considerable amount from a nearby mall, and you got them. Pools after pools of scarlet ribbon, glazed pastel sprays and painting sticks. You folded them into little bows, pinned them up for later use. For all the condoms and labels, you stickered them neatly and set them aside. You never flustered with rage or squirmed with embarrassment at any of the decisions or indecisions. But you didn’t forego of your chances. You learnt to be a leader. You know they hated you for the tangent of new faces. They felt a prick of intrusion, an enduring interference sliding through their plans. It was all your fault –said or unsaid. Maybe it was, or maybe it wasn’t, but you know you tried your best. You tried to mediate the wafts of accusation with a calm smile or a gentle blink –nonreactive and indifferent. There’s something else you learnt other than cold criticism –tolerance and self-positivism.

With all the preparations more or less set, you dived into action. You sent reminder messages, twiddled with the faculty for extra-credit, planned flyers and banners and forum locations, informed the radio station and a host of other students to work for a cause. To work with respect and dedication stemming from a genuine concern and not from shameless make-beliefs. You learnt to weigh your worth and gauge your value, match your ideas and leadership roles in a wider arena. You boosted your confidence when you interacted with new people. Initially distracted by their awkward discreteness, insulting comments and narrow-minded gestures, you had tried to escape. To break away from this vicious whirl of pride and ego and alter-egos, of caustic joys from people who devalued your intent. But you learnt to grow out of it –quickly and efficiently. You’ve seen reality today through the haze of an ancient bioscope. Some people never change.

Do you also remember the clouded apprehension from the blood examination you opted for? Shuttling between spasms of emotional histrionics, you whispered consolations to yourself. Skipping heartbeats and breaths and narrow-minded self-quibbles, you panicked with fear. Because you were afraid of society and life-long accusations. Of frozen sympathy and the drudge of fatality. You can reach out to the millions today, holding hands and sharing tears. To support their existence and walk with them before they fade away. Not only for the blatant homosexuals, but also the innocent infants who see so little of the world. Of the hundreds and thousands of broken children, who come and go, like little flashbulbs across railroads. Their parents had aspirations and countless dreams in their make-believe existence, but they slid away unnoticed. Stop grieving over your missed opportunities; they never got a chance. If there’s one thing that you learnt today, it would be to respect your worth. The world will never wait for you.